As
prime
minister,
then
president
of
the
Fifth
Republic
-
with
powers
as
much
strengthened
as
he
had
wished
-
de
Gaulle
wheeled
and
dealed
with
the
pieds
noirs
and
Algerian
rebels,
while
the
war
continued.
In
1961,
a
General
Salan
staged
a
military
revolt
and
set
up
the
OAS
(Secret
Army
Organization)
to
prevent
a
settlement.
When
his
coup
failed,
his
organization
made
several
attempts
on
de
Gaulle's
life
-
thereby
strengthening
the
feeling
on
the
mainland
that
it
was
time
to
be
done
with
Algeria.
An
episode
in
the
same
year
-
covered
up
and
censored
until
the
1990s
-
when
between
seventy
and
two
hundred
French
Algerians
were
killed
by
the
police
in
Paris,
reinforced
this
feeling.
This
"secret
massacre"
began
with
a
peaceful
demonstration
in
protest
against
police
powers
to
impose
a
curfew
on
any
place
in
France
frequented
by
North
Africans.
The
police,
it
seems,
went
mad
-
shooting
at
crowds,
batoning
protesters
and
then
throwing
their
bodies
into
the
Seine.
For
weeks
corpses
were
recovered,
but
the
French
media
remained
silent.
Eventually
in
1962,
a
referendum
gave
an
overwhelming
yes
to
Algerian
independence
,
and
pieds
noirs
refugees
flooded
into
France.
Most
of
the
rest
of
the
French
colonial
empire
had
achieved
independence
by
this
time
also,
and
the
succeeding
years
were
to
see
a
resurgence
of
fascist
and
racist
activity,
both
among
the
French
"returnees"
and
the
usual
insular,
anti-immigrant
sectors.
From
the
mid-1950s
to
the
mid-1970s
a
French
labour
shortage
led
to
massive
recruitment
campaigns
for
workers
in
North
Africa,
Portugal,
Spain,
Italy
and
Greece.
People
were
promised
housing,
free
medical
care,
trips
home
and
well-paid
jobs.
When
they
arrived
in
France,
however,
these
immigrants
found
themselves
paid
half
as
much
as
their
French
co-workers,
accommodated
in
prison-style
hostels
and
sometimes
poorer
than
they
had
been
at
home.
They
had
no
vote,
no
automatic
permit
renewal,
were
subject
to
frequent
racial
abuse
and
assault
and
were
forbidden
to
form
their
own
organizations.
De
Gaulle's
leadership
was
haughty
and
autocratic
in
style,
more
concerned
with
gloire
and
grandeur
than
the
everyday
problems
of
ordinary
lives.
His
quirky
strutting
on
the
world
stage
greatly
irritated
France's
partners.
He
blocked
British
entry
to
the
EC,
cultivated
the
friendship
of
the
Germans,
rebuked
the
US
for
its
imperialist
policies
in
Vietnam,
withdrew
from
NATO,
refused
to
sign
a
nuclear
test
ban
treaty
and
called
for
a
"free
Québec".
If
this
projection
of
French
influence
pleased
some,
the
very
narrowly
won
presidential
election
of
1965
(in
which
Mitterrand
was
his
opponent)
showed
that
a
good
half
of
French
voters
would
not
be
sorry
to
see
the
last
of
the
general.
